A sale of items that belonged to the Russian royal family has broken auction records at Sotheby’s in London. The collection of items, which belonged to the Romanov family, sold for £7 million which was more than seven times the pre-sale estimate.
The sale included a 25th Wedding Anniversary Fabergé Imperial jewelled cigarette case, which was created as a gift for the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, the sister-in-law of Emperor Alexander III. It sold for £612,250 – 12 times the pre-sale valuation. Two other cigarette cases sold for £601,250, including a diamond encrusted Fabergé containing a handwritten note in Russian from Emperor Nicholas II to his wife Alexandra. The note read: “Alix and I ask you to accept this small present as a souvenir of this day/Nicky”. Two more cigarette cases sold for over £500,000. In addition a pair of jewelled Fabergé cufflinks sold for £103,250, which was nearly double the previous record for a pair of cufflinks sold at auction. They were estimated to sell for between £3,000 to £5,000.
The cigarette cases, cufflinks and snuff boxes were deposited by staff of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna at the Swedish Legation in St Petersburg in November 1918, as the country’s aristocracy fled in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. The Grand Duchess ordered them to hide the jewels in pillow cases to ensure that they were not confiscated en route. However, she died in 1920 and the trove lay “unknown for 91 years”, according to Sotheby’s.
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